PRETERIST BIBLE COMMENTARY › Forums › Forum › Who are the Angels John Writes to in Revelation?
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May 27, 2017 at 4:11 am #8934adminKeymaster
In Revelation 2-3 John delivers seven letters to seven churches. He addresses each letter “to the angel of” each church. It is likely that when John writes to these angels or messengers of these churches that he is addressing human messengers meant to deliver John’s vision to each church or perhaps the pastor of each church. After all the Bible does occasionally call people “angels” or “messengers of God” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16; Haggai 1:13; Malachi 3:1; Matthew 11:10; 24:31; Luke 7:24; 9:52; 1 Timothy 3:16; Revelation 1:20; 2:1, 2:8; 2:12; 2:18; 3:1; 3:7; 21:17). Furthermore, 2 Enoch calls men “a second angel”: “I created man from invisible (spiritual) and from visible (physical) nature . . . and I placed him on earth, a second angel, honourable, great and glorious[.]” (2 Enoch 30:12) Though humans can be called angels, I believe in light of the fact that there were seven angels who enact the seven plagues of Revelation that this fact suggests to me the possibility, and perhaps likelihood, that these seven angels may also be simultaneously addressed in these letters. If John also addresses heavenly angels in Revelation 2-3, this is not the first example of this in the Hebrew sacred scriptures. In the Book of Enoch, Enoch writes a letter from fallen angels to God. Enoch then also records God’s response and reads it to these angels.[note]Phillip Carrington, The Meaning of Revelation, (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2007), 1.[/note] Similarly, in Deuteronomy 4:26; 30:19; 32:1; and Isaiah 1:2 heaven, the realm of God and angels, and earth, the realm of men, are addressed together so as to act as two witnesses (Deuteronomy 17:6). See Revelation 21: A Preterist Commentary. When John addresses the seven angels of the seven churches, is he also writing to the angels of heaven and man, the “second angel” (2 Enoch 30:12), in order to act as the two witnesses required to put someone to death (Deuteronomy 17:6)? I believe he is.
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